Re: whose interests?

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sun, Feb 15, 1998 at 08:32:40AM +0000, Jim Dixon wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Feb 1998, Kent Crispin wrote:
[...]
> > I see.  You are confused about the meaning of the word
> > "representative" -- it means "be a spokesman for", and does not carry
> > any particular significance as far as how the representative is
> > chosen, nor does it have any particular significance concerning the
> > population sizes involved, nor does it require the consent or approval
> > of the entity being represented -- my elected representative is my
> > elected representative whether I voted for him or not. 
> 
> Your notion of representation is quite interesting and perhaps revealing. 
> It would of course be applauded by authoritarians of all types: dictators,
> oligarchs, religious zealots.  All claim to represent without consent,
> to have a natural right to speak for the ignorant and unenlightened.
> 
> You claim that ISOC is representative not only without any form of 
> consent from those being represented, not only without their knowledge
> of their being represented, but even without their knowledge of the
> possibility of their being represented.  This is simply ludicrous.

You seem to have a little trouble with this -- perhaps an example 
will help:  The American Kidney Foundation can *accurately* be said to 
represent Americans with Kidney disease, even though most such 
people are not members, do not vote in AKF elections, and indeed may 
not know that the AKF exists.  This is true for many thousands of 
advocacy groups of various kinds; ISOC is such a group.

> I can only suppose that this sort of reasoning is behind the 
> assumption that the gTLD MOU did not need any support from the 
> Internet community.

No one has ever held such an assumption.

-- 
Kent Crispin, PAB Chair			"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
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